In socio-economic development strategy in the period of 2011-2020, Vietnam defined that throughout requirements of rapid development associated with sustainable development, innovative growth model and economy restructure are key tasks in the medium term and long term. Specific indicators set out to be achieved in the strategy are: Reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the energy activities from 10% - 20% in the period of 2011-2020 and 35% - 45% for the period of 2020 - 2030;  Increasing the value of product in the high-tech industries with GDP of about 42% -45% (2010-2020) and 80% (2020-2030); Applying clean technologies or advanced devices to reduce pollution and waste disposal for 100% new business established; Improving urban sustainable development with environmental soundly buildings, clean water, and renewable energy as well as treating 100% of household waste; Promoting sustainable consumption and green building by the change of consumer behavior.

To concretize the Strategy and National Action Plan on green growth with above key tasks to promote efficient energy using and savings, recently, the Prime Minister also issued Decision No. 428 / QD-TTg on adjusting national electricity development plan for the period of 2011 - 2020 towards 2030. In which, the objective of increasing the share of renewable energy development is built from 7% in 2020 to over 10% in 2030. In particular, hydropower development priorities, especially those projects benefiting a total activities (flood control, water supply, electricity production), increasing the total capacity of hydroelectric power from about 17,000 MW to about 21,600 MW by 2020, and about 24,600 MW (accounting for 20.5%) by 2025. Wind power is also focused on investment, total capacity was increased from 140 MW at present to 800 MW by 2020 and 6,000 MW by 2030. The total capacity of solar power is forecasted to increase from the current negligible levels upto approximately 850 MW by 2020, and 12,000 MW by 2030 (accounting for 3.3%) (Prime Minister, 2011). It can be seen that there is a strong commitment of the Government in reducing the proportion of electricity from fossil fuels. However, planned thermal power still accounts for more than 50% of total electricity production in the next 15 years (Vietnam Sustainable Energy Union, 2016). Meanwhile, wind energy and solar energy are the renewable energy sources expected to grow the most, it still accounts for a very small proportion.

In addition, the national action plan on green growth, energy issues and efficiency savings have not received the necessary attention. With the advantage of being an agricultural country, Vietnam has a large and diverse biomass from agricultural waste. According to calculations by experts of agriculture and environment, the total amount of agricultural waste is at about 140-150 million tons per year, of which 70-80% is from livestock waste. In addition, the annual agricultural and forestry production also creates a huge volume of residues with about 30 million tons of straw, 10-15 million tons of bran and husk, millions tons of bran saws, multiple stems of plants. These products which are not be processed will be harmful garbage, but over 70% of which can be a resource for production and life if they are recycled (Institute of Science, Technology and Rural Development. 2015). In fact, the current total capacity from biomass (152 MW) and from domestic waste (8 MW) is very small, only about 3.4% compared with the potential to exploit this energy resources (Hoang Thi Thu Huong, 2014).

On the basis of implementing the National Strategy for Green Growth and the National action Plan for Green Growth, the local authorities are actively implementing action plans and programs in line with socio-economic conditions of each locality. With focus on concretizing objectives, targets and measures in the National Action Plan and Strategy for Green Growth, today, more than 25 localities, including Quang Ninh, Thanh Hoa, Ben Tre, Ho. Da Lat, Vinh Phuc, Ha Giang, Thanh Hoa, Ha Tinh, Hue, Ninh Thuan, Binh Thuan ... have been building an action plan for green growth. In addition, the action plan for green growth is also deployed in regional scale as the Mekong Delta, Central Highlands and Northwest (Nguyen The Phuong, 2015).

Although the application, integration of green growth strategies into plans, programs of socio-economic development in localities have reached a certain number of achievements, but many places are also facing many challenges. In some localities, although Green growth action plan was approved and issued changes in the production structure as well as the results achieved are not clear due to the lack of detailed solutions and not very feasible for the specific circumstances of the locality.

In the above-mentioned localities, Quang Ninh is one of the localities which is the most active in integration and application of the National Action Plan and Strategy for Green Growth in the province's development policy. With the target of 2020 to achieve the target of environmental protection and construction, Quang Ninh become a destination and a place for worth living. Some key objectives are outlined such as reducing the intensity of greenhouse gas emissions, Greening production, Concentrating waste water treatment systems to meet the 100% standards in industrial zones, industrial parks as well as Greening lifestyles and Promoting sustainable consumption (Quang Ninh Provincial People's Committee, 2015). With determination to transit economy from "brown" to "green" towards sustainable development, the development and implementation of the Action Plan on green growth in Quang Ninh province is considered to be a new and efficient approach to attract domestic and international investor, as well as overcome the previous existence caused by economic growth.

However, considering the national scale, the number of provinces and cities achieved initial success as Quang Ninh is very limited. Many localities hesitate in building and implementing green growth strategies. The mobilization of financial resources for conducting the contents of the two policies are still difficult, especially in the context of international funding gradually cut in recent years. Besides, the transformation of economic development from the "brown" to "green" posed significant challenges for many localities, especially the local economy mainly depends on agriculture and industries using lots of labor.

 

Vietnam is considerably affected by climate change, therefore, the implementation of green growth strategy is not only the leading concerns as a development motivation and oriented tool for economy towards sustainable development, but also helping Vietnam cope with and mitigate the negative impacts of climate change. Although there are many challenges and difficulties, opportunities and prospects for implementation of green growth strategy in Vietnam is still huge.

For Vietnam, the first advantages mentioned is the strong support of the international community through the development agencies like the World Bank, Asian Development Bank (ADB), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) ...

Besides, Vietnam has huge potential for renewable energy resources distributed widely across the country. Biomass from agricultural products or waste has 10 million tons of oil equivalent (TOE) per year. Biogas potential is approximately 10 billion m3 per year from waste, animal and agricultural residues. Technical potential of small hydro (<30MW) is more than 4000MW. Plenty of Solar sources with average sunshine radiation 5kWh/m2/day is allocated across the country. Geographical location of Vietnam with more than 3.400km coastline also help Vietnam have huge potential for wind energy potential estimated at 500-1000 kWh/m2/year (Tuong Tu, 2015).

As a latecomer country in the implementation, integration and application of a national strategy on green growth, Vietnam has many opportunities to study green growth models efficiently and take advantage of support from pioneer countries such as Japan, South Korea in Asia and Germany, England, France in Europe.

Identified the focus of national development policies, Vietnam has shown a strong commitments and efforts to implement green growth Strategy through the action plan on green growth at both national and local level. The implementation of green growth strategy is also reflected in the conversion of Vietnam growth model and the restructure of economy towards sustainable development.

Although opportunities and prospects for applying green growth policy are quite open, there are also many challenges for Vietnam in the transition of growth patterns namely financial difficulties, qualified manpower resources and technologies for green growth.

Vietnam's economy is still mainly depended on the exploitation and using a lot of natural resources and fossil energy for economic development and consumption. With features of an agricultural country, Shifting production towards modern, using natural resources efficiently and sustainably is a big challenge for Vietnam, especially in poor regions, and mountains provinces.

Besides, although the Government has mechanisms to support the development of renewable energy, however, this is a new industry, with large investments and risks, therefore it is difficult to attract the both domestic and international investors. Vietnam currently has no mechanism to support prices as well as ensure a stable purchase prices for renewable energy, so the renewable energy market in Vietnam is still relatively slow development compared with other countries in the region such as Thailand and Malaysia.

The level of technology in a number of sector such as agriculture, assembly is at low level, foreign investment is still mainly in some sector using labor-intensive resource, this poses challenges for local investment in modern technological innovation, consumption reduction, as well as the use of energy saving and efficiency.

Financially, although Vietnam has become a middle-income country, the budget for the implementation of green growth is very low. Moreover, in the context of the current global economy, the mobilization of financial and technical resources have many difficulties not only domestic but also from international donors.

Besides, the importance and urgency of implementing green growth strategies are overlooked in some localities. This leds to deforestation, wasteful use of resources, direct discharge into the environment and climate damage was widespread. Education and awareness of community about green growth and related contents such as greenhouse gas reduction and economical use of energy efficiency, green and sustainable consumption are incomplete.

In order to remove the difficulties ahead, Vietnam needs to mobilize the resources and financial mechanisms for green growth. In particular, it is essential to improve comprehensive public-private partnership model, proactive approach from private resources as well as develop financial tools based on the carbon credit market to ensure sustainable and stable financial resources for green growth. For financing mechanism of green growth at the local level, it is necessary to decentralize clearly the national and local financial resources for green growth as well as diversify the forms of attracting and mobilizing finance for growth green such as issuing green government bonds in the local provinces.

In addition, Vietnam also needs to develop and promulgate mechanisms to encourage and promote the research and use of new technology with less fuel consumption, greenhouse gas emission reduction and environmental protection. Besides, the guarantee and incentives mechanisms for developing renewable energy should be also issued soon. The new mechanism will be a powerful lever for manufacturing enterprises, especially local businesses in changing outdated polluting technologies to new ones with more effective productivity and performance in using energy and natural resources.

In terms of economic restructure, it needs to increase the proportion for investment in the production sector benefiting high economic efficiency, less environment pollution, natural resources saving, such as the service industry, ecotourism, and Information Technology.

Besides, Vietnam also needs to focus on investment to take advantage of renewable energy sources, especially biomass energy sources or waste products of agriculture and wind energy from more than 3400km long coastline .Moreover, It is essential to continue to implement preferential policies on taxes, fees, funding support, land and ensure output prices to encourage more investment in clean energy, and renewable energy.

The transformation of the economy from the "brown" to "green" in the whole country and in each locality should firstly get consent from all levels of management, business and citizens. Therefore, education, raising awareness of community in implementing green growth strategy is urgent activities. With the growth of social networks and media, the propaganda and education on the national strategy and action plan for Green Growth will carry out more easily to all class of community through photo exhibitions, advertising products for green growth in social networking, propagandizing the knowledge of green growth on television, short films, as well as put the contents related to green growth in all educational levels...

Understanding green growth strategy, challenges and prospects, along with the efforts of the Government, community, businesses and international organizations, the implementation of green growth strategy in Vietnam is sure to reach certain achievements in the future, especially in the production, exploitation and consumption.